Bill for the Use of a Body (5 page)

It was a long hard swim and towards the end he began to fear that he would not survive it, but at length his feet touched bottom. Gasping for breath and half frozen he staggered ashore on Stonecutter's Island and for some time lay there exhausted. But he knew that if he were to escape capture he must get much further afield before morning. Pulling himself together, he made his way inland towards the north-east bay, which he knew to be a junk harbour. When he reached it he saw that a line of unlit junks was tied up against the quay. But as he stood in the deep shadow cast by a godown he caught the tramp of heavy boots. Then, by the faint light of the new moon, he saw a Japanese sentry patrolling the wharf, evidently for the purpose of preventing anyone escaping in one of the junks.

Unarmed as Julian was, it would have been suicidal to attack the sentry openly; so he resorted to a stratagem.
Crouching down beside the warehouse, next time the sentry was about to pass it he emitted loud groans. The sentry halted in his tracks, then came over to him.

Having chosen his words carefully from his small stock of Japanese, Julian moaned in that language, ‘Help, honourable comrade; help. I have been knifed by a filthy Chinese.'

In the darkness the soldier could not see that he was a European and bent down towards him. Julian's right hand shot out and seised him by the throat; with his left he grabbed the man's automatic rifle. As Julian was much the stronger, the struggle was brief. When he had throttled the small man into insensibility he hoisted him over his shoulder, carried him to the dockside and threw him into the water.

Since his first days in Egypt, Julian had always worn a money belt with a considerable sum in banknotes in it and some fifty gold coins. He also now had the Jap's weapon and he meant either to bribe or force the owner of the last junk in the line to set sail and put to sea. When he had gone aboard and roused the man it transpired that neither bribery nor threats were necessary. The Chinese skipper and his family, who made up the crew, all hated the Japanese like poison and, now that they no longer ran the risk of being immediately boarded and shot up, they were only too eager to get away from Hong Kong. It was thus that Julian had escaped death, or years of semi-starvation as a prisoner, at the hands of the Japanese.

As he sat now, on a lovely sunny morning near the flagstaff up on Victoria Peak gazing down at the prosperous city and Stonecutter's Island, those were some of the memories that drifted through his mind. The fears and horror that he had felt on that terrible Christmas Day twenty-two years ago were difficult to recapture, but he knew that he would never forget the ghastly
blunder he had made while trying to save the young V.A.D.

Hearing the sound of voices behind him, he turned his head. A man and a girl were approaching and within a dozen yards of him. On the instant he decided that the girl was one of the loveliest he had ever seen.

With his first glance at the approaching couple Julian took in the fact that the man was young, on the short side, dark and tanned; then his eyes became riveted on the girl, almost to the point of rudeness. She obviously had Eastern blood, but he felt sure that she was an Eurasian on account of her beautiful, flower—like face.

Her abundant, carefully dressed hair was dark with reddish lights in it; her face was wide and flattish, with a good straight nose, a large beautifully modelled mouth and a firm jaw line. Her cheek bones were high, the outer ends of her dark eyebrows slanted slightly upwards and her flawless skin was a pale gold; but these evidences of her Chinese blood were offset by a pair of magnificent grey eyes. She was wearing a blue silk blouse with open sleeves that displayed her slender arms, and a short kilted skirt showing a pair of legs that any girl might have envied.

She returned his gaze with unruffled calmness, for she was accustomed to such tributes to her beauty and had put him down at once as an Englishman of the kind she usually liked. The hearty, bovine types who, without the least encouragement, swiftly became amorous were a bore to deal with. But the slim, well-built ones with their quiet expensive clothes and ease of manner strongly appealed to her, provided that on acquaintance they proved intelligent and had a sense of humour. This one, she
decided promptly, might be a top-line business executive, but more probably held a high post in Government Service. That he was very much older than herself did not lessen her interest in him, as from his bronzed, strong-featured face she judged him to be as fit as a fiddle and the fact that his thick, dark hair had gone grey at the temples gave him an air of considerable distinction.

Suddenly conscious that he was staring at her, Julian looked quickly away. The couple passed behind him to the far side of the flagstaff and sat down on the grass some forty feet from where he was sitting. Covertly he watched them, while speculating about their relationship and wondering if he could manage to scrape acquaintance with the lovely girl. It was quite on the cards that they might be lovers. If so, any attempt to join them was certain to be resented and short-lived. But it was a considerable time since any woman had seriously attracted Julian and his one long look at this one had made him suddenly feel as though he were again in his twenties.

As he watched them he saw that the girl was doing nearly all the talking, and that she was pointing out various places of interest to her companion. Deciding to risk a rebuff, he stood up and strolled over to them. At his approach the girl gave him a charming smile. Returning it, he said:

‘I hope you will forgive my butting in, but I wondered if you could tell me if one can see Macao from here?'

She shook her head. ‘No. It lies behind us to the southwest, forty-five miles away. But even on a clear day it would not be possible to glimpse it because the mountains on Lan Tao Island cut off the view in that direction.'

Casually he followed up with, ‘Lan Tao is the biggest of the islands, isn't it?'

‘Yes; it is bigger than Hong Kong. But not many people live there because there is very little water on it.'

‘Water is quite a problem in Hong Kong, I gather,' Julian remarked.

‘Yes; there are many reservoirs and more are being built. But we are mainly dependent on the rains for our supply, and if in the spring they are late in arriving it causes great inconvenience.' She then went on to name all the reservoirs and gave the figures of their capacity.

Smiling down at her, Julian said, ‘It surprises me that anyone like yourself should have all these statistics at your finger tips.'

‘It is part of my job,' she laughed. ‘Although they must forget them next moment, American visitors are insatiable in their demand for figures and I am a professional guide working for the Hong Kong Tourist Association.'

‘Not all Americans,' remarked the young man on her other side. ‘I'm just happy to sit around and listen to you talk. And perhaps now you'll get back to where we were. You were about to give me the history of the Colony.'

His tone made it clear that he resented Julian's intrusion. But now Julian was aware that the girl was in his company only as a professional guide he felt no scruples about making a third in the party. Calmly sitting down beside her, he said, ‘History has always fascinated me and I should very much like to hear, Miss … Miss …?'

He caught a twinkle in the girl's grey eyes as she responded, ‘Sang; Merri Sang. And this gentleman is Mr. Bill Urata.'

Julian gave a slight bow. ‘My name is Julian Day and I am delighted to meet you both.'

‘It's good to know you,' said Mr. Urata, although he obviously did not mean it.

Meanwhile Julian had taken stock of him. Seen closer to, he also obviously had Eastern blood. He looked about twenty-four, was about five foot seven, broad-shouldered and had strong, square, practical hands. His hair was crew-cut, his eyes very black, his face sallow and, apart from his teeth seeming over-large, he was decidedly good-looking. The gaudy check shirt he was wearing was open at the neck and not tucked into his grey trousers.
Two cameras and a range-finder were slung round his body. After a moment Julian remarked to him:

‘You implied just now that you are an American, but from your name and, if I may say so, your appearance I should have taken you for a Japanese.'

‘My folks are Japanese and I was born in Japan,' replied Urata laconically. ‘But since I was old enough to make high school I have lived in the U.S.; so I've gotten to think of myself as more than half American.'

‘Mr. Urata is the son of a big ship-owner in Osaka,' Miss Merri Sang volunteered. ‘Having completed his education at Berkeley University in California, he is going into his father's business, and he is combining pleasure with business by using Hong Kong as a base from which to visit other ports in the Orient.'

Julian only raised an eyebrow, but Urata caught his thought and said aggressively, ‘Any objection?'

‘Not in the least. Where you choose to take a holiday is no affair of mine. But since you raise the point, I shouldn't have thought you could expect to find a very warm welcome in Hong Kong, in view of the way your countrymen behaved here when they captured the island.'

Urata shrugged. ‘Some of them got high on looted whisky and behaved pretty rough, I'm told; but the Germans did plenty worse and no-one kicks them for that these days. When I took my vacation in Europe last summer they were rubber-necking all over France, Italy and Greece. What happened twenty years ago, either there or here, doesn't stop the locals from being civil. Most all of them think about is how much dough they can take off sucker tourists. Besides, come to that, part of my family was on your side. The uncle I lived with in the States had become an American citisen before the war and fought against the Germans in Italy.'

Julian nodded. ‘How interesting. Well, anyway, I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying your stay here.'

‘I certainly am. Now that's settled let's hear Merri tell us about the island.'

‘With pleasure,' smiled the ravishing Miss Sang. ‘I will say my short piece telling how, from an island that one hundred and thirty-two years ago was inhabited only by a few poor fisherfolk, Hong Kong has become a great metropolis with a population of over three million.

‘You must know that it all started because the English took a great liking to tea. By the early years of Queen Victoria's reign it had become very popular and they could not get enough of it. But it had to be paid for in silver because the Chinese Emperor maintained that China had everything she wanted and no need or wish to trade with the outside world.

‘As tea drinking increased, the British Government became more and more annoyed at having to send money instead of goods to China, so they hatched a most unscrupulous plot to stop the drain on their silver. Over a hundred years before this the British East India Company had established a post in Canton to buy silks, Chinese porcelain and other things for which Europeans were willing to pay a high price. The Company's representatives had a far from happy time there. They were not allowed to take their wives to Canton, or to mix with the Chinese or learn their language. They were forbidden to have weapons or ride in a rickshaw or go out after dark; and they had to do all their business through a corporation of Chinese merchants that was called a
Hong
. But at least they had their foot in the door and they determined to use the
Hong
for their wicked ends.

‘In India the Company grew opium on a very large scale and sold it to the people there at a big profit. But it happened that in the 1830s they had a large surplus of the evil drug on their hands. In those days opium was hardly known in China, except for medicinal purposes, so the British said, “Let us encourage the Chinese to smoke it, then we will kill two birds with one stone. We
will have made a market for our surplus stock and pay for the tea with that instead of with silver.”

‘The
Hong
merchants were just as unscrupulous as the British and willingly agreed to market the drug. During the next few years thousands of chests were imported and tens of thousands of unfortunate Chinese became drug addicts. Greatly distressed by this, in 1839 the Emperor issued an edict sternly forbidding all further traffic in the drug.

‘The British Government were greatly upset by this; but they soon found a way round it. The Company, as the Government's agents, stopped importing opium into China; instead they sold it to big trading houses such as those of Mr. Matheson and Mr. Dent, who were quite willing to smuggle it in, and the
Hong
, anxious not to lose its big profits, continued to distribute it almost openly.

‘This resulted in the Emperor sending a Mandarin named Lin Tse-hsu as Viceroy to Canton to put a stop to the smuggling. That caused the smugglers no uneasiness because they assumed that all that would happen was that they would have to give away a small fraction of their huge profits to the
Hong
so that it could give the new Viceroy a somewhat bigger squeeze than it had been paying the old one, and that by putting up the price of opium in a few months time they would soon get their money back.

‘But things did not turn out at all like that. Viceroy Lin proved an upright man. Far from proving bribable, he threatened the merchants of the
Hong
with death if they did not surrender their stores of opium, and ordered the British merchants to disgorge theirs as well. To save themselves the Chinese sent in a thousand chests, but the British stood firm and Captain Elliot of the Royal Navy had the Union Jack run up over the trading post in Canton. Viceroy Lin retaliated by withdrawing all Chinese labour and surrounding the post with troops.

‘Captain Elliot had only one sloop of eighteen guns
under him and that was down river, so rather than risk their all being killed he told the smugglers that they must give up their opium. Furious but helpless, they handed over two million pounds' worth of it and the honourable Lin had the satisfaction of employing five hundred coolies to mix it with salt and lime then throw it into the river.